Feelings are positive, emotions are negative. I can see
how having an emotion is always a
negative thing. But feeling happy about oneself is also a negative thing, is that
true?

Perspective:

It's not that emotions and feelings are 'bad' things. When we say something is 'bad', we are really just assigning a negative charge to a word, or an event or a concept - when, in itself, the word/event/concept just is what it is.

So - why do we at Desteni investigate both our emotions as the negative experiences and our feelings as the positive experiences?

Emotions and feelings are energetic experiences. How does energy work? Energy - just as with electricity - always moves between opposite poles. On a battery you'll have a positive side, indicated with a '+' and a negative side, indicated with a '-'. Our Mind's energy operates in the exact same way - where it will always move from positive energetic charges, or feelings, to negative energetich charges, or emotions. That is why we are never just stable, but have 'ups and downs' - because the energy in our mind always has to switch between emotions and feelings.

So - what does this imply? It implies that emotions and feelings are dependent on one-another. Meaning: the emotion of hate must exist for the feeling of love to exist - the emotion of sadness must exist for the feeling of happiness to exist - because emotions and feelings co-exist in a relationship of polarity, and the one end of the polarity cannot exist without the other, opposite, end. In other words - we will never 'rid' ourselves of our negative energetic experiences if we want to hold on to the positive energetic experiences - because every time we participate in a positive energetic experience, we immediately create a negative energetic experience as well.

So - that explains why we investigate both emotions and feelings, as we cannot choose to keep one and do away with the other in terms of what emotions and feelings are by their very nature of polarity.

Now - some more on feelings. You will see/realise as you continue in your DIP course, that there is 'more to feelings than meets the eye'. What on the surface is experienced as something 'positive' or 'good' - actually indicates an aspect in yourself where you're 'lacking' something within yourself. This will be most easily explained with an example.

For instance - when we fall in love, we generally experience this as a positive/good thing - because it 'feels' good. We have love in our life, and all is wonderful and we feel fulfilled. However - this love is triggered by something outside of ourselves - we look for it in other people, in family, friends or a partner. But the underlying 'problem' so to speak - is that we are actually not loving ourselves. And because we don't love ourselves - we look for love elsewhere - through forming relationships with other people. And then we have an energetic experience that we call 'love' and we feel satisfied and fulfilled. But... as with all energetic experiences, this feeling of love will fade, or may even alter into an experience of resistance, disgust and even hatred.

So - what does the feeling of 'love' do? It gives us a 'quick-fix' - where we for a moment feel satisfied and fulfilled - but actually, what it does, is: make it so that we don't go and look deeper - to the origin of the feeling - which is the lack of love within ourselves - the lack of self-love. And this self-love is not just an energetic, fleeting experience. It is a living application in terms of how we treat ourselves and in terms of whether or not we accept and allow ourselves to be less than who we can be. This self-love is real love. And once we learn how to love ourselves - we can extend this love as an actual living application to others as well - where we can then live others as ourselves equally.

So - we're investigating feelings, because they 'hide' points of ourselves that require attention - and instead of 'settling' for merely fleeting positive energetic experience - we work towards fulfilling ourselves in a real and substantial way.

About the author

I started walking a process of self-honesty, self-forgiveness, writing and self-corrective action after watching videos on YouTube by Desteni in 2007. This was the first and only time that I found a self-help method to really be effective and I am standing by these principles to this day. I currently live and assist on the Desteni Farm. For more information on Desteni and this process, visit www.desteni.org.